Taxonomy term

sarah derouin

Earth in the Hadean Eon, between 4.56 billion and 4 billion years ago, was much too hot to support active plate tectonics as we know it today, where cold, established plates slowly march around Earth. Yet some evidence, including from tiny zircon crystals dating to the Hadean, has suggested that a form of plate tectonics was active by about 4.1 billion years ago — about a billion years before many researchers think modern plate tectonics started. The mechanisms that could have initiated and sustained early tectonics are unclear, but according to a new study, constant bombardment of early Earth by meteorites could have triggered temporary bursts of early tectonism.

Once considered detrimental to ecosystems and nuisances where, for example, dams flooded farmland, beavers have been rhetorically touted in recent years as a potential boon for wetland health and water conservation. Anecdotal accounts and qualitative findings have suggested beavers improve water quality and availability in drought-stressed ecosystems, but just how much influence they have was not known. In new research, scientists have examined two creeks in Nevada to directly measure how effective beaver dams are at slowing water flows and storing water through the dry summer months.

Coal burning produces an array of chemicals and particulates that, when released into the atmosphere, contribute to pollution, poor air quality and threats to public health. Measurements of particulate air pollution typically focus on particles called PM2.5, which have diameters of 2.5 micrometers or less. This group includes nano-sized particles, although these bits of minerals, dust and organics often go undetected because of their tiny size. In a new study, researchers sampling a coal ash spill have unearthed a type of nanoparticle not previously known to be produced by burning coal. While the particles might be useful in detecting pollution problems, they may also have consequences for human and environmental health.

Not many people are able to combine their work and hobbies the way Craig Clements, a meteorologist at San Jose State University in California, has. “I was always interested in mountain weather,” he says. “I got into meteorology through my interest in mountaineering and climbing.”

Threats to species can encourage evolution, leading to animals with harder shells or other defensive adaptations. In a recent study in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, researchers found that while some ancient brittle stars — relatives of starfish with long, whip-like arms — evolved in the face of threats, some adapted a different approach: they moved.

Wildfires have burned increasing acreage in recent decades, a trend that’s expected to continue with global climate change. In the U.S. West, the frequency of fires has implications for water availability — both water used to fight wildfires and municipal water supplies, which can be contaminated by loosened debris from eroding, fire-burned slopes.

When a meteorite smashes into Earth’s rocky surface, the immense temperatures and pressures created can melt rock into glass and leave signatures of the impact behind. Impacts produce tell-tale planar features in quartz grains called shock lamellae — picture a scrambled television signal, with repeating horizontal lines chopping and distorting the image into layers — that scientists have thought were produced only by meteorites.

Coral reef cover is known to have decreased over the past few decades, but longer term estimates of coral cover have been difficult to reconstruct. In a new study, researchers used high-resolution historical nautical maps from the 18th century to determine changes to reefs in the Florida Keys.

Modern humans began journeying out of Africa by at least 75,000 years ago, eventually expanding across the planet. Evidence of these early human travels, including fossils and artifacts, is typically spotty and difficult to find. But one such discovery more than a century ago has shed new light on the appearance of humans in Southeast Asia.

Field geologists usually love camping, hiking and all things outdoors. Today, Jess Phoenix is no different, but she wasn’t always that way. As a child growing up in Colorado, she bucked traditional backpack-wearing pursuits. “I would take the horses on trail rides and that was probably the most outdoorsy thing that I did,” Phoenix says. Instead, she took after the athletic interests of her parents, both FBI agents, playing “every sport under the sun.”